ICY DOCK is a leading manufacturer of removable hard drive enclosures. Since our company has always been about the customers, we wanted to create an informal avenue for us to communicate with you! Hopefully, these blogs will provide you with insights and opinions about ICY DOCK products.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

As one of our most exciting releases to date, the ExpressCage MB324SP-B brings to you our highly consumer-friendly enclosure made for anyone that requires affordable storage density. Fit up to 4 x 2.5” SATA/SAS HDD/SSD (7mm-12.5mm) into a single 5.25” bay with the ability to hot swap for easy drive replacement and single channel SAS support (SAS host required). Tool-less drive installation makes installing your drive more simple than ever and optional bottom tray screw holes are provided for extra protection and added stability. With a strategically placed 40mm cooling fan placed behind the unit and all around ventilation, your drives will stay cooler than the Arctic. An adjustable fan speed jumper lets you choose between HIGH, LOW, or AUTO smart cooling so you can set it based on your preference. Power users and system builders alike will enjoy the space saving, tool-less and hot-swap features provided by the ExpressCage MB324SP-B.

Utilize the Standard 5.25” Bay

Our ExpressCage series is the latest addition to our lineup of ICY DOCK products and is catered to system builders and power users that require much more from their 5.25” bay. The MB324SP-B utilizes that 5.25” standard bay and converts it into 4 x 2.5” hot-swappable bays with support of 2.5” SATA and SAS HDD/SSD between 7mm to12.5mm in height. Our versatile enclosure supports SATA III 6Gb/s and single channel SAS (Requires SAS Controller Card). Extremely power efficient, the ExpressCage MB324SP-B can power all 4 drives with a single 15pin SATA power connector which can free up cable clutter and simplify your system build. In addition, our active power feature keeps your enclosure powered down until a drive is inserted minimizing energy usage.

Features upon Features

Through careful planning and design, we’ve incorporated the most desired features into our ExpressCage MB324SP-B. A 40mm cooling fan located in the center-rear of the enclosure keeps your drives cool by ventilating all 4 drives and dissipating heat through air vents surrounding the unit. Control the amount of air flow with our included fan speed control which can be set with a simple jumper pin. Set the fan to HIGH for maximum airflow, LOW for whisper quiet operations, or AUTO for smart cooling (determines the temperature of the drive and changes the fan’s RPM accordingly to keep your drives cool).

If the stock fan is not your preferred choice, we’ve made it easily upgradable with any standard 40mm fan with 2pin or 3pin headers. Choose your favorite aftermarket fan and install it into our ExpressCage MB324SP-B with no effort at all. Aftermarket fans with extra long cables can easily be managed with our built in fan cable management system –wind the cables up to keep them neat and tidy.

Additionally, each bay has its own indicator light to notify you of any hard drive activity. Soft-blue LED makes it easier to sense when drives are in use without straining your eyes. Locking latch support for both 7pin SATA and 15pin power connector secures your connection so they’ll never slip out of place. (Requires cable with supporting locking latch features as well)

Innovative ExpressTray Design

The magic of our ExpressTray simplifies the drive installation process to provide a complete tool-less process to remove and install hard drives or SSDs. Attach a drive within seconds to the ExpressTray and remove it just as easily –the process is easy! Simply place the front end of the drive (the side without the connectors) down into the built in screws and ensure that end sits flush with the base of the tray. Now push the rear end (the side with the connectors) downwards onto the drive and ensure that there’s no space between the drive and the tray. To remove the drive, you simply need to reverse the process. Pull on the rear tab of the tray to free up the drive and then remove the drive. Our reinforced latching system located on the ExpressTray is made extremely durable so you won’t have issues with them further down the road.

Optional screw holes are available beneath the tray in case you want additional drive stability. Ventilated slots in front of and beneath the tray help keep airflow extremely efficient to keep your drives icy cool.